Blog Stats

39,157 hits

Abraham Lincoln on Criticism

"If I were to try to read, much less answer, all the attacks made on me, this shop might as well be closed for any other business. I do the very best I know how - the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what's said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference."

Consider the Cost

"Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events." ~Winston Churchill

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 578 other followers

Charles Spurgeon

"Our blessed Lord reveals himself to his people more in the valleys, in the shades, in the deeps, than he does anywhere else. He has a way and an art of showing himself to his children at midnight, making the darkness light by his presence."

Progress through Perseverance

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or whether the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes up short again and again; Who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; Who, at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; And who at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.
It is far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight of life, knowing neither victory nor defeat.
~ Theodore Roosevelt

Psalm 7:10-17

God will uncase the hypocrites ere long, and make them know, to their sorrow, what is was to trifle with Him." - Richard Baxter

Archives

Archives

The Reformed Pastor – Richard Baxter

“We must carry on our work with patience. We must bear with many abuses and injuries from those to whom we seek to do good. When we have studied for them, and prayed for them, and exhorted them, and beseeched them with all earnestness and condescension, and given them what we are able, and tended them as if they had been our children, we must look that many of them will requite us with scorn and hatred and contempt, and account us their enemies, because we ‘tell them the truth.’ Now, we must endure all this patiently, and we must unweariedly hold on in doing good, ‘in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves, if God, peradventure, will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.’ We have to deal with distracted men who will fly in the face of their physician, but we must not, therefore, neglect their cure. He is unworthy to be a physician, who will be driven away from a frenetic patient by foul words. Yet, alas, when sinners reproach and slander us for our love, and are more ready to spit in our faces, than to thank us for our advice, what heart-risings will there be, and how will the remnants of old Adam (pride and passion) struggle against the meekness and patience of the new man! And how sadly do many ministers come off under such trials!”

Pages

Meta

There are lots of posts about homemade laundry soap, but the thought of grating up bars of soap just didn’t cut it for me. I put off making this for over a year because I didn’t want to mess with the liquid recipes and didn’t want to lose a finger. When Jillian, my daughter, offered to make laundry soap while I’m out here in Virginia, I agreed. After she grated her finger, I researched and tried the microwave method. It took a bit, but I came up with a good way to make bar soap into powder.

Most recipes tell you to grate up the bar soap or use your food processor to make it into a powder. But I wanted to have all my fingers and Jillian didn’t have a food processor, so I decided to try another way – death by microwave!

I broke the bar soap in half to limit the amount of middle since it took longer for the micro waves to reach the center in the first two times I attempted it. I put it in a glass bowl and set the microwave on 80% for 2.5 minutes. You might have to play with it since microwaves can be different. This is what I ended up with.

After it cools, put it into a gallon size baggie and crumbled it up – very easy, just grab it and mush away! Make sure you wait till it cools, the centers stay hot for a while and will melt the baggie and burn your hands. Been there done that!

Take a rolling pin and crush it into powder. Each bar equals about a heaping cup.

Now you are ready to combine ingredients. Combine one cup of each of the Biz, Arm & Hammer and powdered bar soap. Just mix, and you’re done! Use one tablespoon of the homemade laundry soap for small loads, two or three for large or tougher loads.

Rachel from Far More Precious, has some cute laundry soap labels that you could Mod Podge onto your jar.

Saturday I bought only items that were on sale, had coupons and/or Register Rewards from Walgreens and ended up with $106.oo worth of goodies for $29.00. I bought Listerine, laundry soap, 4 cough and cold meds, two Glade three-wick candles, soup, lotion, candy bars, gum, a toothbrush, dental picks, 3 Visine tears, 2 immunity boosters, and a schick replaceable head razor. They are pictured below:

Then today I stopped in to Rite Aid to check out this week’s flyer. Fortunately for us, we have one right across from church. The back page has a bunch of stuff on sale with a single check rebate for the entire price. I picked up $87.00 worth of items for FREE! On sale, it came to $59.00. You have to pay that up front and then submit your register receipt online. Rite Aid will then send you the entire purchase price by check, minus tax. My shopping efforts over the past two days gained me nearly $200 worth of drug store products for less than $30. These items are on the back page of this week’s flyer. Shop early in the week to be sure to get the items featured.

We received an unexpected money gift today, so Jonathan and I sat at the dining room table clipping coupons all afternoon. It was rather fun – he’s actually pretty good at matching up sale items with coupons. We made a list of items from the weekly flyers while Jacob was making Chicken Cacciatore for our dinner tonight. I bet not too many of you moms out there with 17 year old sons could say that! This Old Mother Hubbard was getting a little concerned over her empty cupboard! Tomorrow we’ll spend the day shopping using a 4 page grocery list! Wahoo!!

Today I went to Walgreens and got $63.oo worth of products for FREE. The Fructis mousse, Zucol cold tabs, Revlon concealer and lip gloss, and the contact solution had rebates that equaled their cost. I also had a $2 coupon for the Zucol, so that gave me a $2.00 overage. The Theraflu was 2 for $10 with a $6 rebate. I had 2 – $2 coupons to cover the balance. The Right Guard was on sale for $5.99 and gave me a $5 register reward. Since I requested my rebates to come in the form of a gift card, I received an additional 10% which was $4.00 – that along with the $2 overage for the Zucol paid for the Arm & Hammer deodorant (on sale for $.99) and the Right Guard (99 cents). I like free – free is good.

Today I went to Walgreens and got $63.oo worth of products for FREE. The Fructis mousse, Zucol cold tabs, Revlon concealer and lip gloss, and the contact solution had rebates that equaled their cost. I also had a $2 coupon for the Zucol, so that gave me a $2.00 overage. The Theraflu was 2 for $10 with a $6 rebate. I had 2 – $2 coupons to cover the balance. The Right Guard was on sale for $5.99 and gave me a $5 register reward. Since I requested my rebates to come in the form of a gift card, I received an additional 10% which was $4.00 – that along with the $2 overage for the Zucol paid for the Arm & Hammer deodorant (on sale for $.99) and the Right Guard (99 cents). I like free – free is good.

I’m only going to bore you one more time with my shopping trip savings. Here is another picture of groceries, etc. that I picked up last night and a listing of my savings. The only thing missing is a big bag of cat food. This time I only spent a couple of hours getting together my coupons and list. The original price for all these items was $119.04 with a savings of $58.56. Since I used three of my $15.00 in RR (register rewards) from prior WAGS (Walgreens) deals, I only had an OP (out of pocket) of $45.74. All these items came from Walgreens, Walmart, Meijer and Steve & Barry’s. For dinner, Jillian and I ate at Subway with a 2/1 coupon so we got a foot long sub free. The key to saving is to make a detailed list and sticking to it, buy only items on sale, and find coupons to combine with the sale items. Buy more than what you need and store it, so you don’t have to buy it at full price next time you need it. If you are consistent you should be able to make your dollars stretch all year ’round.

After getting the scoop from April yesterday on the Walgreens sales, coupons and rebates, and reading a couple of sites dealing with Walgreens couponing, I set out to see what kind of deal I could get myself. I spent a couple of hours off and on, printing coupons off the internet, looking at the ad, making my list, etc. Pictured here is the purchase I made at Walgreens. The total came to $67.47, but after I subtracted my coupons, sale prices, two for ones, rebates and register rewards, I ended up paying only $5.75!

Here’s what I did: I purchased 26 bags of the cough drops at $.39 on sale. Since the original price before coupon came to over $25.00, I qualified for a $10.00 gift card because of a special promotion they had running on their cold remedy products. The in store coupon had a limit of 3, but I just asked the cashier if I had to stick to that and she said, “no.” Walgreens also offers a $5 register reward at the $25.00 mark, so that spit out of the machine along with my receipt. Since they were on sale for $.39, purchase totaled $10.75. After you subtract the $5 register receipt and the $10.00 gift card that will come by rebate, I end up with a $4.25 overage. I then purchased all the rest of my products, all of which were either on clearance or had store and manufacturers coupons. That order also came to over $25 (original prices before coupons), qualifying for another $5 register reward. That total came to $15.00. If you subtract the $4.25 overage and the $5 RR, my total out of pocket for both purchases comes to only $5.75!

I was a bit hesitant when I first went into the store, since I had little experience with this sort of thing, but I left with a determination to make this a weekly venture! I am very anxious to get to Wausau to be able to do this with April! I’ve always said that if you can find a hobby or sell a product that benefits people, you’ve won half the battle. I think this fits the bill. What do you think?

Amy Carmichael

“If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.“

Welcome to my blog.

My name is Val. I am wife to Mark, mother to 15 and Grammie to 11. Along with serving in my church, I minister to others through writing and blogging. I am also a photographer, graphic designer and professional organizer. It is my desire to serve God with my life and be a blessing to my family as well as those around me.

Want God’s Best?

“God reserves His best for those who leave the choice to Him.” Pastor Randy King